Affordable Apts., Retail Coming To Historic CBD Building

3 Jan 2014

A Curbed NOLA reader was curious about the construction taking place at 234 Loyola Ave. in the Central Business District and here’s what’s up: The former Industries Building is getting a much-needed makeover and will come back to life as a retail-office-mixed income apartment combo. Step one for the building, which was built in 1909 for the Colored Knights of Pythias fraternal order, was getting rid of its horrendous 1960s facade (see below) and exposing the original brick work.

Green Coast Enterprises developers, the Crescent City Community Land Trust non-profit, Studio WTA, and Landis Construction are teaming for up the project. Plans for the ten-story building call for two floors of retail, a few floors of office space, and over 80 one-and-two-bedroom mixed income apartments. Just when it seems like every new residential development is tagging “luxury” on to its description, Green Coast Enterprises partner, Alexander Kelso, says,

“Downtown New Orleans has become a thriving residential neighborhood, but it is becoming unaffordable for a large portion of the City’s population. Our partnership with Crescent City Community Land Trust allows us to offer a unique asset in the downtown New Orleans market. We are building a mixed-use, mixed income project that offers affordable housing for working people in New Orleans that make too much for subsidized housing, but cannot afford to pay downtown market rents.”

Fun fact: The former top-floor dance hall space, where soldiers and sailors cut a rug before heading off for WWII, will be turned into two-level loft apartments.